Chapter Text
Bernard was walking down the street with his head down and earbuds in, watching conspiracy TikTok on his phone, when he was accosted.
Lucky for him, it was a gentle accosting. He didn’t even realise it was happening at first.
After a few seconds, his delayed processing receptors switched on and he realised a persistent sound was filtering through his earbuds. He paused TikTok and looked down at the source of the noise.
There was a little girl standing in front of him on the footpath, looking delighted to see him. Too delighted. She was [white static noise] years old. Look, Bernard didn’t have much experience with kids. He was an only child and he never babysat. He was peripherally aware of the existence of young children but never invested in learning the specifics. Child actors hired to play kids on TV were never the correct ages, so he had no idea what an actual six-year-old looked like.
(And that’s what he was looking at, he’d learn later. A very precocious six-year-old.)
Taking out an earbud, Bernard blinked bemusedly at the little girl. She had black hair and features of nebulous ethnicity, with incongruous tan freckles sprayed across her nose. She was the kind of skinny that kids are when they’re all knobbly knees and tiny wrists, whipping around the playground and scuttling up trees like it’s nothing. She was talking at him.
“You’re my daddy’s friend!” she was telling him happily.
“Uh, I don’t think so?” Bernard replied slowly, because she might be the child of one of his parents’ socialite or business friends, but he doubted it. They weren’t exactly in a posh neighbourhood and she was far too guileless and blunt – nevermind her mismatched outfit of rainbow leggings and an overstretched shirt – to be an heiress.
Plus, he was pretty sure any of his actual friends would have told him if they had a whole-ass kid.
God damn but the little sprout was confident. “Yeah you are!” she pipped, tiny voice filled with a certain authority that made him straighten up reflexively. “I’ve seen pictures! You know Uncle Jay!”
Uncle J? Surely she didn’t mean the Joker. Bernard’s heart skipped a beat. If this was a plot to lure people into a trap, the clown had sunk abominably low, even for him. Bernard had to get this little brainwashed child out of there.
“Uncle J?” he asked cautiously, trying to keep his tone neutral and non-threatening. “Did Auntie Harley send you?”
The little girl’s nose wrinkled, like he’d said the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. He’d forgotten how brutal children could be. “Who’s that? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re friends with Uncle Jay and Timtam!”
Uncle J and T- Oh good lord. She couldn’t mean. “Do you mean Jason and Tim?”
She nodded vigorously, happy that the idiot she was speaking to was finally catching up. “Yeah! Uncle Jason! I’ve seen you in pictures.”
Holy crap, Dick Grayson had a child. A child, who could speak and talk and wear shoes and everything. A whole person. How had the tabloids not leaked this yet? How had she not been media trained?
“You were there that night that daddy wore the things in his ears to get fancy with Tim! I call him Timtam because that’s what Uncle Jason calls him, even though Tim doesn’t like it. I think it’s so that Timtam can challenge himself.”
What.
Wait.
Bernard had been with someone wearing things in their ears – earrings, obviously – and getting dressed up with Tim. It had been during an undercover mission about a month ago, and everyone had gotten ready in the Batcave (to which Bernard had finally been allowed access, causing him to produce much excited squealing). Bernard had been snapping candid shots, but so had Cassandra (the goddam ORPHAN/BLACK BAT/ninja assassin?!?).
The group chat had been flooded with their snaps for two days, but the group chat was heavily encrypted. No one could access it; Tim and Roy had set it up to be airtight. Even Batman (BATMAN!) didn’t have access, though he could probably hack it if he wanted to.
Dick had definitely been there that night, but he hadn’t been wearing anything in his ears. He’d been wearing sweats because of a sprained ankle and general “hot even when I’m not trying” aesthetic (which Tim insisted was a hundred percent unintentional). The one who’d been dressed up had been-
His train of thought was momentarily derailed by the realisation that the little girl was still talking.
“My daddy says that the most important thing you can do is challenge yourself. That’s why I make sure I brush my teeth even when I don’t want to, or go to school even when I don’t know anyone, and when I’m playing Minecraft I always make my axolotls swim in the ocean where sharks can eat them, so they challenge theirselves.”
“Uh.” The end of that sounded like a very Joker thing to say, but he didn’t want to get this kid offside. “That does sound challenging.” That was a suitably neutral response.
The girl nodded and chewed on the cuffs of her shirt. “Yeah, they usually die,” she informed him through a mouthful of fabric. “That’s why it’s important that I keep doing it.”
Her dad, whoever he was (and Bernard was starting to get a suspicion) sure had his work cut out for him with this kid, that was for sure. Maybe her mother was a superhero groupie or something – someone charismatic but a little unhinged. And speaking of:
“Uh, so, where’s your dad? Or your mom? Are you here with them today?”
“Here” being a random street two blocks from Bernard’s house. It was so bizarre. There weren’t any playgrounds within a few blocks as far as he knew, but admittedly he didn’t really keep track of that kind of thing. It was Saturday so she hadn’t escaped from school (or whichever institution housed eerie little axolotl murderers).
“Dad’s on the phone,” she replied casually. “I got bored so I went for a walk. And then I saw you and I recognised you from the pictures.”
Bernard didn’t have kids but he was pretty sure that [white static noise] was too young to be wandering around the streets of Lower Gotham by yourself. He gave her a smile. “I’m glad you recognised me. It’s probably not a great idea to go off by yourself around here.”
“Because of murderers,” she agreed.
“Uh, yeah,” Bernard laughed awkwardly. “But also just cars and strangers and everything. Your dad’s probably worried about you.”
“Nah,” she dismissed, swinging her leg and watching her elongated shadow move back and forth. “He’s got trackers in my shoes that he can see with an app. He’ll know where I am.”
“Well, we should probably still go back to where-“
“LIAN!”
A loud shout from behind him alerted Bernard to a man running towards them, shoving other pedestrians out of his way in panic.
“Daddy!” The little girl beamed as Roy freaking Harper shouldered past Bernard (ow?) and crashed to his knees in front of her.
“Lian!” he repeated, sounding anguished and furious and relieved and close to tears all at the same time. Bernard was never having kids. Roy grabbed the girl and hugged her tight, then broke away and gripped her shoulders like he couldn’t decide whether to embrace her again or shake her. “Why did you do that? You know you’re supposed to stay with me.”
Lian didn’t give a toot. “I wasn’t lost,” she informed him. “I knew where I was and I didn’t cross the street, and I found someone I knew. Plus, I have those finder things in my shoes.”
“Those are for emergencies,” stressed Roy, actually shaking her (gently) now. “They’re not so you can run off whenever you get bored. You’re in so much trouble. I was so worried. You’re not getting any iPad today. I love you so much but I’m so mad. I don’t know what I’d- I’m so mad, Lian.” And he was hugging her again, which she tolerated with a small pleased smile.
Bernard felt like he was intruding, but also:
“Roy?”
Roy pivoted, still on his knees and clutching Lian, looking up at Bernard for the first time. “Wha- Holy shit, Bernie?”
“Swear jar,” recited Lian immediately.
“Hi,” said Bernard, not really knowing what the etiquette in this kind of situation was. “Are you okay?” Roy looked pretty shaken – pale and blotchy in a way that Bernard had only seen once, when the other man was lying on his bed with a concussion, severely broken leg, and threatening pneumothorax.
Bernard was never. Having. Children. He and Tim could adopt cats. Indoor cats. They could be crazy cat man all day long. Bernard was never taking on this kind of emotional trauma.
Roy nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just got the crap scared out of me. I’ll be fine.”
“Swear jar,” piped a little voice again.
Roy turned back to Lian. “Excuse me?” he said, sounding melodramatically affronted. His voice was a little hoarse, but clearly Lian could tell he wasn’t really angry about this because she giggled into her tiny fists. “Swear jar? You think you can run off and give your dad a heart attack and still be in charge of the swear jar?” He was poking her stomach now, and she squeal-cackled as she tried to wriggle away from his tickles. “I don’t think so, young lady!”
Roy made to swoop in and grab her but she shrieked and ran behind Bernard, her face illuminated with a smile so wide Bernard’s cheeks hurt just looking at it. Roy didn’t chase her, clearly still recovering from the emotional whiplash of the experience. His hands were shaking.
Bernard offered him a hand up. “So this is your…?”
Roy took the offered hand gratefully. “Yeah, this is my daughter Lian,” he said as he rose to his feet, still gazing fondly at her even though she’d just taken ten years off his life and had seemingly zero remorse about it.
“Hello Lian,” said Bernard politely, turning to look down at her as she peeped out from behind his legs. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Bernard.”
She squinted up at him. “I thought your name was Blondie.”
He let out a surprised laugh. Roy chuckled, fiddling with the bands on his wrists with quick, twitchy movements that Bernard didn’t think he realised he was making.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Roy said, not sounding sorry at all. “She’s heard me and Jaybird talking about you a few times but we usually use nicknames.”
“For… secret identity purposes?” Bernard asked quietly, keeping his face super cool and his tone discrete and casual. (He’s been talked about in the same conversations as SUPERHERO SECRETS!)
Roy shrugged and deflated Bernard immediately. “I guess, yeah, but also ‘coz real names are boring. I mean, Timothy and Bernard? No offense, but those guys sound super lame.”
“But Leroy and Jason, what, those guys are fixing jukeboxes with one punch?” retorted Bernard, feeling weirdly defensive.
“Is that a Happy Days reference? That’s exactly why Bernard wouldn’t be cool, because his reference for cool things would be Happy Days.”
Bernard conceded the loss with dignity, and a topic change. “What are you doing around here, anyway? You just visiting?” He figured that if Roy was here for superhero business, he wouldn’t have brought his daughter along with him, but it was still a random part of Gotham to be wandering around in.
Roy looked a little sheepish. “Yeah, I was actually headed to your place. So this is lucky!”
Bernard was immediately suspicious. He started walking towards his apartment, the two Harpers following him. “You were visiting me? Not that you’re not welcome, but it seems like a long way to come for a spontaneous drop-in.”
For a superhero/antihero with a secret identity and civilian persona that had been exposed to so much media scrutiny, Roy Harper was a terrible no good very bad liar. “Ah, yeah,” he coughed. “About that.”
“We’re gonna give you some of the shoe tracers!” announced Lian happily, sticking her hands in Roy’s pockets and pulling out his keys.
Roy automatically grabbed them back and held them higher than Lian could reach, as she made half-hearted attempts to jump for them while walking. “Ha!” he laughed loudly. “Yeah, that would be fun wouldn’t it? Shoe tracers for everyone.” He grinned at Bernard like they were sharing a “Kids! What do they know?” joke between sane adults.
Bernard didn’t buy it for a second. “Freaking Tim,” he said, because he was capable of censoring himself around children. “You were going to put trackers in my shoes.”
Lian was far too observant for her age, which was far too young to be discerning about social nuance. “We’re gonna do EVERYTHING!” she chirped happily. “Dad’s gonna do your shoes and your jackets, and I’m gonna put some little stickers on your windows that make a pterodactyl sound when someone tries to break in.”
Roy grimaced. He could try to smooth things over but even his roguish charm was going to be hard-pressed to beat the blatant invasion of privacy Lian had just illustrated.
Still, he was always game to try. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea,” he said, shooting his best “I’ve got it covered, babe” grin at Bernard and rolling his shoulders to flex his pecs and biceps. “Hey, I’ve got some stuff in my bag, if you want, we could set up your house with a-“
“Are you seriously trying to grift me right now?” asked Bernard, unimpressed. “Are you honestly using your eyebrows and” (he lowered his voice because there was a child present) “sex arms to distract me?”
Roy’s grin didn’t falter. “Is it working?”
Bernard had to concede: “Maybe, in another life, where Tim and I are distant cousins and never dated or something. Shut up, I know you’re looking for an ego boost and you don’t need one. Tim roped you into invading my privacy, didn’t he? God!” He exhaled loudly and counted to five in his head. “I expect this from that family because they have no concept of boundaries but I’m kinda disappointed in you, if I’m being honest.”
Roy had the grace to look abashed. “Hey man, I get it. I’m not a fan of the whole invasion of privacy thing either. You know how long it took me to talk Tim out of the toilet thing he was planning?”
“The toilet thing” was the sensor Tim wanted to install in Bernard’s toilet that would monitor his overall health and take a drug screen every time it was flushed. Bernard had staunchly put his foot down about that months ago after he’d been kidnapped, so to hear that it had still been presented to Roy as an option was incredibly frustrating.
Bernard understood Tim’s paranoia, and generally found it endearing (if not a little bit of a turn on). Some people talked about wanting a partner who would fight for them – Bernard knew that Tim’s version of this was downloading tracer apps to his phone and hacking the security cameras around his apartment. Bernard usually appreciated this, because it demonstrated a level of investment in his wellbeing that he hadn’t experienced before. Plus, Tim usually respected his boundaries and listened when Bernard veto-ed a particularly concerning idea, such a toilet monitoring.
At least, Bernard had thought that Tim was respecting his boundaries.
“That doesn’t actually make it better,” Bernard told Roy honestly, still heading to his apartment. The guy already knew where Bernard lived, so they may as well continue this conversation in private. He’d just have to keep an eye on Lian to make sure she wasn’t hacking into his laptop or installing bugs in the ceiling or something.
The three of them were silent for the rest of the walk, which Roy and Bernard found uncomfortable and Lian didn’t notice at all because she was too busy stepping on crunchy leaves with her left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot again…
(Roy privately worried about her obsessive tendencies, coming from a history of addiction as he did. He tried to tell himself that Lian’s mother also had those traits and had used them to hone her skillset, and that he himself wouldn’t have become the archer or marksman he was without a bit of obsession. You had to be a perfectionist to be the best at anything, and that drive didn’t come out of nowhere. Roy just hoped and prayed and begged to deities that he didn’t believe in, that Lian would escape the shadow side of this part of his DNA.)
Once they were back in Bernard’s apartment, Roy gave Lian his phone to play Roblox on and he and Bernard sat in the living room with glasses of water.
“Okay, so yeah this is awkward,” acknowledged Roy. “Cards on the table, I was gonna break into your house – gently! – and install a couple of things.”
Bernard was unmoved. “You can see how I might be pissed off about that,” he said lightly.
“Totally.” At least Roy agreed. “Look, I get it. I fuckin- I hate all the monitoring that goes on with this type of work. It’s a big reason why I cut ties with the JL and all that crew.”
The JL was the Justice League. Batman and SUPERMAN and WONDER WOMAN. Bernard would never not make internal shrieking sounds about that kind of casual name-drop.
But the point had been made. Roy agreed that a certain level of monitoring was not okay, and Bernard couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed. Yeah, okay, Tim had known Roy and obviously Jason for the longest, and technically Tim would get them both in the event of a divorce or break up, but Bernard thought that he and Roy were friends. Aside from familial politeness, aside from their ties to the Batfamily, Roy and Bernard had met at a gala and clicked.
Bernard had liked to believe that they would have been friends even if they weren’t tied by this weird incestuous thread of superhero life. Even if Bernard didn’t know Tim, and Roy didn’t know Jason, Bernard had always figured that he and Roy would have at least been at a level where they would have enjoyed each other’s company and gotten along.
It’s not that he forgot that ultimately, Roy was a part of The Life. It’s just that he’d had a stupid, naïve impression that he and Roy were friends outside of it. That Roy would have a loyalty to him, or fondness, or some freaking thing, and would have had his back in a discussion like this.
God, it hurt that Tim hadn’t been the one advocating for him, but Bernard had known who he was when he asked him out, when he kissed him, when he held his hand and when he fell in love. Bernard had known that Tim was a little obsessive and he’d thought it was sexy and possessive and it had ticked a lot of Bernard’s boxes. They were friends. He thought that Tim’s respect for him as a friend would override his impulses as a boundary-crossing lover.
He'd been wrong and that was on him. But Bernard couldn’t help being a little disappointed that the scales were falling from his eyes about Roy too.
So instead of pretending that everything was fine, like his breeding and social training instructed, Bernard answered Roy with the truth. “I’m really disappointed, honestly. I would have hoped that between you and Tim, at least one of you would have had my back.”
It hurt to say out loud. It felt unfair. They had no reason to be loyal to him. Of course they were going to agree, as comrades. As… in-laws? Whatever the fuck they were. Roy was Jason’s best friend if nothing else, and Tim was Jason’s brother whether Jason accepted it or not. Of course Roy’s loyalty would be to Tim.
It just made Bernard more starkly aware of how few friends he had on his own merit. Without counting the acquaintances he’d met through galas and social connections, without counting Tim’s friends and family and weird in-betweens, Bernard didn’t have many people of his own. It had been stupid, he knew, to subconsciously claim Roy as his own. But apparently he had, otherwise this situation wouldn’t have tasted so bitter. Roy hadn’t even told him he’d had a daughter, let alone given any sign that he was pledging allegiance. There was no reason to feel betrayed or hurt, and yet here Bernard was.
Roy looked genuinely upset, which Bernard supposed should have meant something. “Yeah, you’re totally right,” the archer said. “Look, I wasn’t- Tim meant well and just wanted to protect you. I was planning to talk to you. I was gonna knock and see if you were home to talk about it all.”
“And if I wasn’t home?” asked Bernard, too used to having his heart bruised to stop himself from asking. “You were just going install everything anyway, right? I don’t really feel like that counts as respecting me or asking permission.”
Roy made a move to grab Bernard’s arm but wisely pulled himself up. “I know. I fuckin-“ he glanced at Lian, who was deep in a Roblox hole and wasn’t emerging anytime soon, “I know this is screwed up. I’m not laying all of it at Tim’s feet. I agreed to this. I just- We wanted- I wanted to- Okay.”
Bernard felt that he was being incredibly generous in letting Roy say his piece before kicking him out of his home. He schooled his face to neutrality as Roy stumbled over his thoughts.
Roy seemed frustrated as well, for some unfathomable and undeserved reason. It’s not like he’d been a helpless pawn in this. “None of us have much experience with this. Pretty much everyone we know is part of The Life. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but none of us really have friends.”
Bernard, to the contrary, had thought that they all had a huge and blessed selection of friends. All connected to superherodom of course, but a huge and tight-knit group of comrades and compatriots. He’d seen them as the cool kids, sprawling their athletic and sexy friend-group across multiple lunchroom tables without a care. He definitely hadn’t seen them as loners.
But Roy was still talking. “You don’t exactly get into this life if you have well-adjusted self-esteem, or healthy attachment. Uh, I’ve realised how fucked up we all are since going to therapy at rehab, so sorry if I sound like a brochure. Uh.” He wiped his nose, looking like he was concentrating really hard and thinking really precisely, which didn’t make any sense. This was just a conversation, not anything stressful or tricky compared to the things Arsenal did on a regular basis.
Roy continued, looking more at the windows and doorframes than Bernard. “I just mean, we aren’t used to having real friends. Normal friends, who aren’t tied to us by the secret identity shit or vigilante club. People we choose or who choose us, you know?”
Bernard didn’t get it. He didn’t know what point Roy was trying to make.
“We aren’t used to caring about people who don’t have safehouses all over the city, or panic rooms accessible with a hidden access panel, or biometric scanners in their living rooms,” Roy said. “We aren’t used to worrying like this.”
Bernard felt incredibly affronted. “Well I’m not used to worrying about people who swing around the city in spandex and short-shorts,” he retorted. “I feel like I’ve made that really clear, with all the requests and outright pleading I’ve done for all of you to wear helmets and proper protective gear and take care of yourselves. I’ve made it really clear that I’d love you to take better care of yourselves, but I’ve always left it up to you and never BROKEN INTO YOUR HOUSES to replace your costumes or installed spyware into your phones. I’ve always respected that at the end of the day, it’s your decisions, and if I choose to stick around, it’s my choice and my emotional load to carry.”
Roy wasn’t the only one who’d been to therapy.
Roy, to his credit, looked truly crestfallen. Good. He should feel shitty about this.
“You’re right,” Roy said. “You’re so right. I’m- I know it doesn’t mean anything now, but I’m really fuckin’ sorry. I’ll own this, I got carried away. After you were kidnapped, and after that case we did with the asshole who was targeting young guys at gay bars… I fucked up. I got protective and scared and instead of talking to you about it like equals, like people who respect each other, I went down a rabbit hole designing tech and focusing on logistics so I could feel like I had some kind of control over things. But that wasn’t fair to you and it was a shitty thing to do, and I’m sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have had to be here to tell you that,” said Bernard, feeling more annoyed and upset that Roy was being reasonable about the whole thing. He wanted it to be a clean break, with a villain to fight against and sever ties from. “I shouldn’t have had to be here to point out to you how fucked up this is.”
“I know,” said Roy immediately.
“Don’t try to take the fall for Tim, either,” warned Bernard. “I know you’re older but I’m not letting him off the hook. It’s just all so screwed up. I hate that I have to seem like I’m an asshole rejecting your protection and friendship when I’m just asking you to not put trackers in my shoes and bug my apartment.”
“If it helps,” offered Roy, knowing it wouldn’t, “the bugs wouldn’t have picked up everything. No one wanted to invade your privacy like that.” (Oh wow thanks, thought Bernard waspishly.) “They would have been triggered by keywords and a sustained elevated heartrate.”
“An elevated heartrate that you would have known about…?”
Roy winced. “Because of the biometric monitors in your ceiling.”
Bernard was so tired. “Okay. Whatever. I believe you when you say that you didn’t think of how absolutely invasive and terrible this is. But I’m pissed and disappointed that you didn’t. I don’t really want you in my house right now.”
Roy looked crestfallen but nodded. “Of course, totally, man. Totally get it. I’ll get out of your hair. You can sweep the place for bugs or whatever. I haven’t planted anything.” He coughed and raised his voice, addressing his daughter who was curled in the corner armchair, absorbed in a game on his phone. “Come on, Lian, time to go.”
Lian put down the phone but immediately whinged. “But we just got here! I’m hungry! I have to pee.”
Roy looked at Bernard awkwardly. “Can we use your bathroom?”
“Of course. You know where it is.” Bernard was annoyed but he wasn’t an ungracious host. Especially not to a child.
Roy and Lian disappeared into the bathroom and Bernard sighed. He looked at his small kitchen, its tiny island with two stools. He looked through the glass cupboard doors at the crockery, which had doubled in size since Tim’s vigilante friends and family had taken to staying the night, or visiting for dinner. He looked at the couch and armchair, which he’d been considering upgrading to a sectional so that more people could fit during movie nights.
He didn’t have a lot of people in his life, and while Bernard was firmly of the belief that it was better to have zero toxic people in your life than three bad friends, he didn’t genuinely believe that Tim and Roy were bad people. He didn’t think that they meant any harm, even though what they were doing was absolutely unacceptable.
They had appalling boundaries and were incredibly arrogant and patronising, but their intentions were coming from a good place. Bernard could give them this chance. He could see if they listened, and really heard what he was saying, and adjusted their behaviour. Was it worth it?
Before he realised what he was doing, Bernard was making a grilled cheese sandwich on a frypan.
He’d figure it out. He’d cool down, talk to Tim, and see how he felt about things. Until then, he’d feed a tiny little girl a grilled cheese sandwich and milk her for all the gossip he could.